New review system
Along with the podcast, we’ve also been beavering away at a review system that we hope will make a lot more sense to the average gamer than some systems out there. Feel free to leave a comment about the system if you think it stinks. Or indeed if you think we’re critical geniuses.
Catch the details after the post break, or go to the About page.
About our review system
In the interest of testing a game’s true worth, GameOnYou only allow 25% of a review score to be influenced by the reviewer’s personal liking of a title or genre. We aim to score games in such a way that the reader can glean an understanding of how well made and functional a game is, how engrossing and rewarding a game is, and whether a game is worth your money.
In an effort to help the read understand where we’re coming from, the following are the criteria we review by:
Playability – Does the game have any bugs? Controls – do they translate well to the game/does it come naturally to play or are the controls too complex? Does it feel finished/polished? Have the developers thought about every tiny detail and built the game to the highest possible quality? (Scale = 0.0 - 2.5, in increments of 0.5)
Addictiveness – Do you want to keep coming back to the game? Eg, Daily challenges/rewards, an engrossing story, the feeling that you’re improving every time you play (the latter is more suited to fighting/driving/sports games etc). (Scale = 0.0 - 2.5, in increments of 0.5)
Value – Comparing price with number of playhours. Is the story mode long? Does it have challenges to be completed/records to be broken? Does the game have separate mini-games thrown in? Are there unlockable characters/items that can be used to play through the story a second or third time? Are the difficulty modes varied enough from each other? (Scale = 0.0 - 2.5, in increments of 0.5)
The reviewer’s own opinion of the game - How much did it grab you personally? Did you fall in love with the artstyle, characters or voice-acting? Basically any aspect that is subject to your own personal impression which might vary from player to player. Pull together all aspects of the game, positive and negative, and add this to the review score to help represent the overall quality of the game (Scale = 0.0 - 2.5, in increments of 0.1)
To the best of our ability, we aim to justify these scores to the reader to help you make an informed decision about whether to buy a game.
We encourage people to leave comments on our reviews asking questions about certain aspects of the game, which the reviewer will do his/her best to reply to. We’re gamers, just like you. We know we won’t cover every possible question that someone might have about a game, so the easiest way to do things is just to ask us!
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By Stealth, 15 April, 2008 @ 10:02 pm
Thought i’d comment saying I like the blog I read most posts, (subscribed to the RSS). Am interested in the new review system you guys are using! Seems pretty good
By Dave Barlow, 16 April, 2008 @ 2:44 am
Cheers Stealth - welcome to GoY! Tell 10 friends about us and we’ll give you Sean!